6/28/15

Dharma Talk, June 8, 2015: Platform Sutra

Good
evening, this is June 8, 2015 our regular Monday night class and hello to those
who are reading this or listening by way of the Internet. We’re going to throw
you into the deep end today but before we get there, I have some news. The news
is that I'm going to be conducting a
seven-day retreat at DDRC right after Thanksgiving. It’s probably a couple
of days after and it’s going to be a little bit of a novel one because I'm
going to fuse together the Roots of Chan with the application of the understanding
of the Right View with meditation.

Those of
you who come regularly will recognize some of the techniques and methods that I
use there. But I feel that if we do this kind of a practice, that some will
have an opportunity to have a little bit of a different view point as to what
the practice is and understanding and more appreciation of the depth and wisdom
of Chan Buddhism. I welcome this opportunity but it's kind of a first for them,
first for me to present this as a full-blown retreat. I've done it for a day and
two-day retreat but not for seven-day so I’ll provide you with more information.
I’m hoping for some participation from this local group but also those who are
listening by way of the Internet. So you're all welcome and I think you'll find
that it's going to be a very good opportunity.

Student:
Where is DDRC?

Gilbert:
Dharma Drum Retreat Center (DDRC) is in upstate or central New
York, very nice area. It’s the main retreat center for Dharma Drum. Good
question.

We will
start. We're going to talk today about something that appears in the Platform Sutra which
was from the 6th
Patriarch, Huineng. In this particular portion, he talks about no-thought, no form - essentially the
essence of the emptiness of all things and in this way there is a revelation of
the Buddha-nature. So here the
practice of Chan is to the point where it continues to cut off any kind of a way
where someone can have a thought or conceptualization, or even cut off the idea
that one is cutting off the thought so what
is left there is emptiness, but everything is there. Everything is
perfectly in its place. It's a very interesting way of cutting because as one
cuts, one finds it as if one is slicing a body of water. One can cut but the
body of water just simply absorbs everything. It is in this way that one sees
how mind works so when we have this idea of how mind works in this way, then
there is liberation because we’re free from conception; we’re free from
distractions, from discrimination. It’s a wonderful, wonderful liberation of
just simply seeing things as they are. Everything is perfectly in their place
without the idea of having the concept of a life in being, an ego or personality.

I'm sure
all of you in your life have experienced [at least once] but probably more like
100,000 times where your ego has gotten you into problems or caused you
suffering. Nobody causes you those suffering but your ego and your clinging to
things. And this we go right to the first of the Four Noble Truths,
of suffering. And when we get to the second one, is the cause of suffering.
When we understand what the practice is, we understand that that will lead us
to the liberation, the third and the fourth practice. It's very very simple.

But when we
look at it and we begin to kind of chew on it, you are presented with a
situation where you're chewing on this but were not able to grasp it. And one
is able to practice by letting go
and we let go but we also [as you’ll find out] letting go of letting go. And the mind just simply stabilizes. It
sees things very clearly and it sees that which is grasping and it recognizes
that which is grasping as phenomenal - that it is not something that’s permanent,
an ego, personality or life in being. So we'll start; this again is Huineng
speaking:

Good friends, in this teaching of mine, from ancient
times up to the present, all have set up no-thought as the main doctrine,
non-form as the substance, and non-abiding as the basis. Non-form is to be
separated from form even when associated with form. No thought is not to think
even when involved in thought. Non-abiding is the original nature of man.

So it's a
very interesting way in terms of how we look at this. If you'll recall a while
back, one of the story is told about this one monk, Wo-lun(?) who talked about
how he had great skills and everyday he cut off thoughts and that his Bodhi was
growing every day. When Huineng heard this, he said, “This doesn't concern the
matter of the nature of the mind. Huineng has thoughts all the time. He doesn't
cut off anything. The Bodhi is just like this.” In terms of this, there is a
slight tweaking of the way one looks at this. Rather than trying to eradicate
discriminatory thought, simply illuminating it and using the wisdom to
eradicate it simply by seeing what it is, seeing the source of it and just
letting go.

In this
way when he's saying that “no-thought is the main doctrine,” he’s saying no-thought
is not to think even when not involved in thought. It's a very interesting
statement because it seems to be contradictory but let's look at this again - no
thought is not to think even when involved in thoughts. What do you think he's
trying to point at? What do you think he’s trying to let you know by saying this
- don't think even though you're involved in thoughts? We talked about this
quite a bit in the last few weeks.

Student: We
have to have the realization of no-self to do the thinking and that makes
thinking entirely different than the self thinking.

Gilbert:
And how is that?

Same
student: Because it becomes an automatic deep process without the theoretical
self being involved.

Gilbert:
What's the difference between this process and when theoretical self is
involved?

Same
student: It occurs naturally and there is no attachment.

Gilbert:
What would you call that?

Another
student: Non-attachment?

Another
student: Knowing the arising mind.

Gilbert:
But what he's speaking of is the action itself; the action of doing without
this theoretical self. So what would you call that? Function; it’s simply
involved in function. Whatever it does, in this moment as I'm speaking to you,
I’m involved in the function of carrying on the Dharma lecture. So many
thoughts arise of what I'm going to say next but in any case, even though there's
the thoughts that arise, that string together to communicate, there is not the
idea of [what you mentioned] the theoretical self. There's just simply this
function of communication. And in that way, it operates in a very seamless way
just like the sword hitting the water and being absorbed by the water. In this
way, you would say it’s like a water-sword hitting the body of water. So
there's this function there. And what happens is that the mind, like what you're
saying Sentha about the rising of the mind, is that at some point there's no longer
the arising in the mind. It comes to a point of illumination that even that
which is arising in the mind and is phenomenal, is mind. There's this
resolution there.

In the
beginning when we practice, we have to look and illuminate the mind so that we
can see that things are arising so that we are not bedazzled by those types of
thought-waves or images that are in our environment. We see them clearly as
arising in mind. Later on it just is that way and there is what we call a suchness and a resolution there of some
kind - what they talk about the Inquiry
of Matching Halves. Inquiry of these matching halves is the phenomenal side
and the noumenon side but within that. That is why he says here “No-form is to
be separated from form even when associated with form.”

So again,
it’s like, “What? No-form is to be separated from form even when associated
from form?” It is in a way of looking at it and saying “This form that’s here, we
see it arising but we understand no-form. There's no-form there even though
there's the appearance of form but it nevertheless is simply mind. And when we
see that in that way, we were clear about it. But it is difficult because he is
speaking in Chan. He is not speaking in this easy language where you go, “Oh,
yeah I get it. It’s very profound.” No, you go, “What?” This is very strange because
all of a sudden, you’re listening to something and it doesn't make sense to you.

It
reminds me of a very simple children's song about a donkey from Gymboree. It says,
“My donkey walks, my donkey talks, my donkey eats with a knife and fork.”

And then
the next line is, “What?” How is that? Perhaps he’s describing humans. And we
go, “What?” (Laughs…) What is that? This is very curious, this idea of sentient
being and how they’re self-establishing, self-proving. In this way they are not
only self-establishing, self-proving, it’s also self-love and self-conceit. So there’s
self-suffering and that’s the catch. To exist or to believe one exists, one has
to play the game; and to play the game, there’s suffering. When one is not so
attached to the self, then there is no suffering there. There’s maybe an issue
where one has a physical problem and experiences pain but it doesn't
necessarily have to be suffering.

So we
look at things from a different viewpoint. We look at it from the viewpoint of “What,
what does that mean?” We want to look deeper in this and we want to investigate.
If it was in his answer in terms of his description, everybody could get
enlightened but is not in that way. The way is to look and practice and try to
say “I want to figure this out. This is of very interesting problem.” Is
Huineng just making this stuff up just to confuse us?

Sometimes
I talk to people who are practitioners and they're going “All this stuff is all
made up! It’s just like nonsensical things that don't add up right.” And it's
because they’re seeing it from the viewpoint of the idea of the self and going “Nah!
It won't work.” If one person looks at a Rubik's cube and starts twisting it
around and after a half an hour maybe they may give up. But now they have
people, they can do with one hand and do it in 15 seconds. So it's possible to
do that.

So if one
gets to that point that is called subitism. Subitism is the
instant enlightened; instant enlightenment is just seeing very clearly in one
moment a flash of how things work. Now that may last for only a flash or it may
last for a minute, or an hour, or a day and one might be able to regenerate it and
have it happen again. If one goes looking for it, chances are they're not going
to get it but if they re-create the method by which they arrived at it, then
there’s more likelihood that there’s further realization that’s going to happen
down the road.

But here,
what Huineng was saying is clear. But the problem is it's difficult for us to
understand that because of the fact that we’re trying to look at this and
saying “How can one think without thinking?” It's a matter of what we talked
about before, is that we need to sever the mind that desires continuation. Every
moment when we experience things, we experience them. We experience them
perfectly. We see exactly what is happening but we do not have to hold onto it
like riding on a roller coaster ride.

It’s kind
of an interesting thing as it is because we get on the ride to scare ourselves
but most of the time we don’t want to be scared. If something comes up behind
you and they go “Boo!!!,” you go, “Stop that; don’t do that!” But then we
voluntarily get on this ride that takes us now to [who knows how fast] 70 miles
an hour, upside-down and around, and we want to be scared. We like that and it
is a very strange name in terms of human as to why we like that type of stuff.
But we know and we do it in our lives in many different ways: taking risks or
whatever, and then after a while we don't like some things. So it's a very
funny thing in terms of it. Sometimes we’re on that roller coaster ride upside-down
and we don't even know that. Any questions before we move on?

Successive thoughts do not stop; prior thoughts, present
thoughts, and future thoughts follow one after the other without cessation. If
one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body separates from the physical
body, and in the midst of successive thoughts there will be no place for
attachment to anything.

Does it
really separate? Yes it separates and in this way where he was saying “no-form
is to be separated from form even when associated with form.” In that moment it
separates.

Student:
Could you read it again - the successive thoughts because that’s the suffering.

Gilbert:
Okay, Successive
thoughts do not stop; prior thoughts, present thoughts, and future thoughts
follow one after the other without cessation.” Now here we’re just talking
about how mind works. That’s just the way it is. It goes like that. Now the
next sentence is, “if one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body
separates from the physical body, and in the midst of successive thoughts there
will be no place for attachment to anything.”

Same
student: I just want to say that this is something that I have really
experienced, the suffering that comes from this mind that doesn’t stop building
over one thing after another. The power of that one moment of stopping is just
so powerful.

Gilbert:
This comes from many different reasons for you. One is the power of your vow,
the power of your practice that you want to investigate and your ability to
illuminate the mind to see what is arising which generates wisdom. As the
wisdom is generating, then what happens is that illuminates those things and
understands the source of the suffering. It understands the source of the
suffering that this person is upside-down on the roller coaster ride and doesn't
even understand that. When we see it clearly, we can see in that moment there
is a flash of realization that has nothing to do with words or concepts. It’s
just simply there is a suchness there coming from that realization that's
incredibly quiet and silent.

It is
very interesting because this kind of a realization [where it’s quiet and
silent] doesn't mean that all of a sudden it's like you putting a soundproof
room or sensory deprivation. Quite to the contrary, one sees things so clearly
and realizes them in a very unusual way. It is very interesting; there was one Master
that had achieved this. I don’t want you guys to practice this or try to mimic
what he was doing but he achieved it in the process of urinating. When he was
urinating, he said that in that moment he was able to see that the flow had
stopped. Now, did the flow stop? Not really; what happened was that his mind
was working so fast he was able to see that if you slow down the process of a urine
flow, you’ll see there's individual drops going out. And he was able to discern
that in such a way that it appeared that time stopped for him because he was no
longer associated with the idea of the self. The self is the one that puts a watch
on and looks at things and says, “Oh, it's time for class. It's time for this”
and it’s time for whatever it is. But when one lets go of that, then there's
just this continual flow and when you see it in that way, that is what this
quietness and the silence that’s there. So there is silence in the sound and
when you see that, it's very wonderful.

When I go
surfing, I always take the time [about half time] where I sit to meditate and just
simply listen to the ocean. Then the ocean becomes so crystal clear but then it
just becomes quiet – totally aware of people walking around me, the waves, the
seagulls bleeping or whatever they do, kids talking or laughing. All those
things are there but it's silent. It's all just incredibly… you’re at the beach;
it’s the way it is. But it’s perfect in its way and you see things in this way.
It is very quiet. This is what I want to share with you [in terms of looking at
it] is you have to practice it order to do that. It's not so hard if you
understand the Right View. If you understand
the Right View, it's much easier to practice than sitting there and trying to
swat thoughts out of your mind or trying to blank your mind completely and thinking
that this is it. It's not blanking your mind. It's like when Huineng said that
he has thousands of thoughts. So it is in just this way. Now we continue:

If
one instant of thought attaches, then successive thoughts attach; this is known
as being fettered.

So if you
attached to it, then it's going to keep attaching and you're going to create
that habit energy of wanting to attach to those types of thoughts. You put that
in your mind so that if any time something comes up [like our lemon-filled donut]
and it arises, it's going to come up again and again. You know that it comes up
because I talk about it all the time. It will arrive and it's fettered. After a
while, you know that Gilbert is fettered to the lemon-filled donut because he
has one stuck to his hand all the time. (Laughs…) So when you see that, then
you see this as being fettered. What are the things that you're fettered about?
Impatience, worrying, you know all sorts of stuff that comes up.

Vic is
here tonight. He’s a stockbroker and I remember many years ago when I asked him
“Why are you so down?”

And he
said, “Because the market is down.”

And I
said to him, “That’s good!”

And he
said, “What?”

I said,
“That’s good because if the market is up all the time, there would be no need
for you.”

And that’s
just simply seeing clearly how things work. So he has to become adept at seeing
the trends of the ups and downs in terms of the market. Speaking of the market,
it is probably a great roller coaster ride. Yes? Yes, (laughs…) so we see
things in this way. We just see things very clearly. When we go, “It's hot!!!”
Well, it's summertime and so it's just natural. We continue on:

If in all things successive thoughts do not
attach, then you are unfettered. Therefore, non-abiding is made the basis.

So in all
things, that means every time you look around at things and you don't attach to
it, you’re unfettered. It doesn't matter to you about these things. You can go
through your life and it doesn’t bother you.

There's a
story about this one monk that lives at the edge of town and there was this
young girl who got impregnated by her boyfriend. And when she got pregnant, her
parents pressed her to find out who was the father of the child. And when she
said “The monk at the edge of town.” So shocked they were and they went over to
the monk and said, “My daughter said that you impregnated her!”

And the monk
said, “Is that so?”

And they go,
“Yeah, that's so!”

So nine
months later, they show up at the monk’s doorstep and said to him, “Here is
your child that was born out of wedlock. You take care of him; he’s yours!”

And he
said “Is that so?”

And they
go, “Yes, that's so.”

So the monk
takes the child. He took good care of the young boy and the mother would see
the monk walking through the town with the child. And she had a sense of shame
and a sense of longing and attachment to the child knowing that that was her
child.

So she
went to the monk and said, “Hey, that's not really your child; that's my child.
You know you don't have any connection with him.”

And the monk
goes, “Is that so?”

And the
woman took her back. It is very difficult for us to do things like that.

Stan, not
connecting you with the story in that way, (Laughs…) you are always working
with animals. I don't know but do you have this feeling sometimes of like
missing them or reluctance to let them go when you've nursed them back to
health?

Student:
Sometimes.

Gilbert:
It's interesting but then again you still know right from wrong and you let
them go because they’re wild, right?

Student:
Yes.

Gilbert:
I mean it's an interesting thing. There was an 8-year old girl that took the
precepts up in San Francisco. She was kind of confused about a lot of things in
terms of how you keep precepts and she goes, “How do I know if I'm doing right?
If I steal the ball in a sport game, is that stealing? And do different things?”

I said,
“You know even at this young age, if you do something wrong, you feel it
somewhere. There's a sense that something is not quite right and you will feel
it even in your body.” And I said, “That’s what they're talking about in terms
of keeping the precepts.” It is being honest and illuminating those feelings and
then illuminating them and you can let them go. So to her I simply said “You
feel it and you sense it and then you know whether that's right or wrong,” and
then you just trust that.

And
that's the way we do it with this. It is like what Sentha was saying is that
when she began to see “Okay, this is suffering. This thought is suffering,”
she's beginning to see what the Buddha was recognizing, that attaching to these
sequence of thoughts create suffering and in anything that it does. I always
make it light like jelly donut simply because I don't want to talk about
serious problems with it, otherwise people might think that I'm talking about them.
So I talk about myself and the jelly donut or lemon-filled donut. But we all
have some kinds of cravings, desires, aversions and we have to illuminate them
and see them very very clearly.

Probably
one of the biggest ones that we have and then you guys can say, “Booo!” is
procrastination. Are there any procrastinators in this room? Wow, this is like
Procrastinators Unanimous Group here. But you procrastinate and it puts you in
a worse position. It's a funny thing about that because we see that and yet, we
can't control it. But the more we can try to do that and try to overcome it, it
makes things a lot better for us. It’s just a simple wisdom that in anything
that we do, we see the things very clearly.

I've
actually seen people quit horrible habits such as smoking, just simply by
looking at a cigarette one day and going, “This is not good!” and they saw it very
clearly - this is not good. Or it could be somebody who was angry all the time
and they start realizing “Wow, this is not good; if I'm angry, or yell at
people, or I am impatient with people,” or whatever. And they see that and
there's that self-reflection. The self-reflection is the illusory self
reflecting on the self-nature of mind. It is simply just there. No idea of
subject and object; just this realization of this habitual tendencies. We
continue:

Good friends, being outwardly separated from all
forms, this is non-form. When you are separated from form, the substance of
your nature is pure. Therefore, non-form is made the substance.

If you
remember a while back, I was talking about one Master and one asked, “What is the
substance of mind?”

And he said,
“Mind is the substance of mind.”

So
essentially it is just reduced down as far as you can go. Ok, hang in there
with me on this part:

To
be unstained in all environments is called no-thought. If on the basis of your
own thoughts you separate from environment, then in regard to things thoughts
are not produced. If you stop thinking of the myriad things and cast aside all
thoughts, as soon as one instant of thought is cut off you will be reborn in
another realm.

Students,
take care! If you do not stop notions of the Dharma, it will be bad enough that
you yourselves are in error, but how much worse if you encourage others in
these mistakes. The deluded man, however, does not himself see and slanders the
teachings of the sūtras. Therefore, no-thought is established as a doctrine.
Because man in his delusion has thoughts in relation to his environment,
heterodox ideas stemming from these thoughts arise, and passions and false
views are produced from them. Therefore, this teaching has established
no-thought as a doctrine.

What they
are saying is that if you begin to see this as a doctrine rather than a way for
realization, then you really mess it up and then you really start trying to cut
off thoughts, cut off thoughts, cut off thoughts, cut off thoughts. But he’s
saying “That’s not natural.”

Student:
Also he’s saying if you separate it from the environment, I think that’s also
very important.

Gilbert:
That separation from the environment is your clue or your key there in terms of
saying that when one separate from the environment, one goes into the point of
duality and seeing these thoughts - cut off thoughts, cut off thoughts. But
he's not saying to cut off thoughts; he’s saying cut off the mind that desires
continuation because that aspect of the mind is illusory and it just comes up
as habitual tendencies that is attracted to it. So when one begins to just
practice in this way, it is no longer a doctrine. It is the way in which one
practices. But if we say, “Oh, this is the no-thought doctrine, then we run
into a problem because it would be like we’re saying, “I am going to engage in
no-thought” which is thought and this idea of creating subject and object.

You have
to take these words and then investigate them. And as you investigate them, all
the sudden you see it's different. It's totally different because all of a
sudden you catch your “self” engaging in this erroneous type way of looking at
it and you're honest with yourself. You're honest; you're saying “That’s not quite
right. It’s not like I got it!” You got nothing but you can’t see it that way
because you’re saying “you got nothing” but it’s like a false nothing. But the
true nothing is just before your eyes - in the mind; it is as clear as the nose
on your face. But we don't see it that way. We create all sorts of types of
conceptualization about that instead of just letting go and letting go and
letting go. When we sit to meditate we just let go, let go, let go of that. And
as we’re letting go of it, we even let
go of letting go. And there comes a point when you let go of everything
there that everything just gels.

It's a
funny thing, the other day I was fixing my surfboard and I put the activator
drops into the plastic resin and I was stirring it. I must have put too much in
there because all of a sudden as I was stirring it and it went, “Chkk(?)…” it
gelled on me and “boom!” it was right there. Everything was so firm.

And when
one practices in the right way, there is a moment where that gels and just
everything is clear and unmoving yet one is aware of sounds arising, forms
arising, and everything else but there's just this unmoving that's there that
defies any kind of description other than “see for yourself.” And if you see it,
it will be there. But if you start looking for it and go, “I want that gel like
that,” you’ll get the gel that I got where I messed up the formula. It was no
good because it gelled and hardened and I couldn’t use it.

That's
the kind of conceptual type of looking at it where it's not going to pay off the
dividends. It's actually going to make things worse. But if one lets go of that,
and just simply investigates and investigates, the mind is self-revealing. It's
a very funny thing. This mind that you use right now, this very very mind that
you use is the Buddha-mind. It works perfectly in accordance with causes and conditions.

If you see
it in the right way, it's like, “There it is!!!” It's there without you even
saying “There it is.” Just in one moment, it’s the same view as one sees but
the only difference is that everything is perfectly in its place – where they
say “Form is not other than emptiness and emptiness is not other than form.
Form is precisely emptiness and emptiness is precisely form;” precisely, so
clear. You’re aware why this person said this; why this person is going to do
that. You are so aware in that moment of that. It's almost as if you can hear
the person next to you thinking because you have an idea, a little peek of what
they're going to do next or what they're going to say next because the mind is
so clear. Some people look at that and say “You know what, that's like mind
reading!” It’s not really mind reading,
it is just listening without subject and object. One is perfectly in awareness.

This is
where you're headed with this practice. It is not to practice consciousness but
to begin to allow the mind to just be aware. And you don't have to get rid of
all of the thoughts in mind to do that. That is a big mistake. You just have to
see the mind that desires continuation
and just let that go. Instead of trying to saw some chain in there, it's
like a tiny little strand of hair and it just breaks off so easily without
worrying about it. Any questions?